Why Did Carla Bruni's Family Sell Their Castle?

Take this castle and shove it. Image via Luxuo.com.
Last week, the international media reported that Carla Bruni-Sarkozy sold her family’s ancestral home in Turin, Italy, for $11.5 million. Bruni-Sarkozy is most widely known for her celebrated career as a fashion model, as well as for her current position as the first lady of France, but she is also an Italian aristocrat, born an heiress to the distinguished Tedeschi tire manufacturing fortune. And speculation about her reasons for selling the property is spreading like wildfire through all of polite society’s finest drawing rooms.

Does she need the money? Has the financial crisis struck even the storied wife of Western Europe’s celebrity president, Nicolas Sarkozy? Could the incident be the first crack in a wall that is bound at some point to crumble to pieces? Such are the murmurs arising from the deep-pocketed jet set. It seems that for many affluent individuals from this world, placing an ancestral home on the market is an action one takes only out of absolute necessity.

Interestingly, though, Bruni-Sarkozy doesn’t appear to be in need of money. Her family has always been rich, she made millions annually at the height of her profession as a model, and her husband’s financial security is firmly established, as he is presently the head of state of a wealthy nation. When asked about the sale of her estate, a peer of hers from an equally important family in Turin said, “I don’t know. They have money, so I don’t know what it’s about.”

Bruni-Sarkozy’s motives for cashing in on her family villa may remain a mystery, but the responses to her behavior from fellow members of her class speak to the significance that is placed on holding long-cherished pieces of property. Americans love to use the expression “land rich, cash poor” while describing English nobility who continue to live in opulent historic houses, though with barely enough money to pay the utility bills. The pleasure in employing the phrase likely arises from the contradiction that lies in hanging on to precious real estate that is technically unaffordable. Because Americans have no tradition of a legally recognized landed gentry class, they are typically quick to comment on the misfortunes of wealthy landowners from other countries.

However, several American families who rose to wealth and distinction as early as the industrial revolution are going the way of Bruni’s Tedeschi line. And for many of them, the reasons behind the sale of treasured assets is not unclear: they are simply desperate for the money. Right in the bucolic community where I grew up, Far Hills, New Jersey, the families who put the place on the map at the end of the 19th century are presently carving up old pastures and clearing wild forests to make space for luxury contemporary homesites.

On one estate that used to be home to a man so rich he paid out of pocket to have the railway extended far enough west of Manhattan that he could ride the train right into his own backyard, there now lives an executive at Goldman Sachs. The stables originally built to accompany another prized manor house in the area have recently become the maintenance buildings for an exclusive golf course constructed by Donald Trump.

In both cases, the families who relinquished the properties needed cash to maintain their upper-class lifestyles. By contrast, everyone in the neighborhood who isn’t limited to a tightly managed budget is holding onto their stately houses as well as their land.

Normally, it isn’t hard times that force old-money families to get rid of their ancestral homes. It’s the gradual dissipation of wealth that happens naturally over passing generations. Eventually, the grand houses and all of the maintenance they require become too burdensome. People who can afford to keep their family estates—regardless of their country of origin—usually preserve ownership of their homes for as long as they are able, with the possible confounding exception of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.